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<h1 class="title toc-ignore">Using renv with Docker</h1>



<p>While <code>renv</code> can help capture the state of your R library
at some point in time, there are still other aspects of the system that
can influence the run-time behavior of your R application. In
particular, the same R code can produce different results depending
on:</p>
<ul>
<li>The operating system in use,</li>
<li>The compiler flags used when R and packages are built,</li>
<li>The LAPACK / BLAS system(s) in use,</li>
<li>The versions of system libraries installed and in use,</li>
</ul>
<p>And so on. <a href="https://www.docker.com/">Docker</a> is a tool
that helps solve this problem through the use of
<strong>containers</strong>. Very roughly speaking, one can think of a
container as a small, self-contained system within which different
applications can be run. Using Docker, one can declaratively state how a
container should be built (what operating system it should use, and what
system software should be installed within), and use that system to run
applications. (For more details, please see <a href="https://environments.rstudio.com/docker" class="uri">https://environments.rstudio.com/docker</a>.)</p>
<p>Using Docker and <code>renv</code> together, one can then ensure that
both the underlying system, alongside the required R packages, are fixed
and constant for a particular application.</p>
<p>The main challenges in using Docker with <code>renv</code> are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Ensuring that the <code>renv</code> cache is visible to Docker
containers, and</p></li>
<li><p>Ensuring that required R package dependencies are available at
run-time.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>This vignette will assume you are already familiar with Docker; if
you are not yet familiar with Docker, the <a href="https://docs.docker.com/">Docker Documentation</a> provides a
thorough introduction. To learn more about using Docker to manage R
environments, visit <a href="https://environments.rstudio.com/docker.html">environments.rstudio.com</a>.</p>
<p>We’ll discuss two strategies for using <code>renv</code> with
Docker:</p>
<ol style="list-style-type: decimal">
<li>Using <code>renv</code> to install packages when the Docker image is
generated;</li>
<li>Using <code>renv</code> to install packages when Docker containers
are run.</li>
</ol>
<p>We’ll also explore the pros and cons of each strategy.</p>
<div id="creating-docker-images-with-renv" class="section level2">
<h2>Creating Docker Images with renv</h2>
<p>With Docker, <a href="https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/builder/">Dockerfiles</a>
are used to define new images. Dockerfiles can be used to declaratively
specify how a Docker image should be created. A Docker image captures
the state of a machine at some point in time – e.g., a Linux operating
system after downloading and installing R 4.2. Docker containers can be
created using that image as a base, allowing different independent
applications to run using the same pre-defined machine state.</p>
<p>First, you’ll need to get <code>renv</code> installed on your Docker
image. The easiest way to accomplish this is with the
<code>remotes</code> package. For example, if you wanted to install a
specific version of <code>renv</code> from GitHub:</p>
<pre><code>ENV RENV_VERSION 0.16.0
RUN R -e &quot;install.packages(&#39;remotes&#39;, repos = c(CRAN = &#39;https://cloud.r-project.org&#39;))&quot;
RUN R -e &quot;remotes::install_github(&#39;rstudio/renv@${RENV_VERSION}&#39;)&quot;</code></pre>
<p>Next, if you’d like the <code>renv.lock</code> lockfile to be used to
install R packages when the Docker image is built, you’ll need to copy
it to the container:</p>
<pre><code>WORKDIR /project
COPY renv.lock renv.lock</code></pre>
<p>Next, you need to tell <code>renv</code> which library paths to use
for package installation. You can either set the
<code>RENV_PATHS_LIBRARY</code> environment variable to a writable path
within your Docker container, or copy the <code>renv</code> auto-loader
tools into the container so that a project-local library can be
automatically provisioned and used when R is launched.</p>
<pre><code># approach one
ENV RENV_PATHS_LIBRARY renv/library

# approach two
RUN mkdir -p renv
COPY .Rprofile .Rprofile
COPY renv/activate.R renv/activate.R
COPY renv/settings.dcf renv/settings.dcf</code></pre>
<p>Finally, you can run <code>renv::restore()</code> to restore packages
as defined in the lockfile:</p>
<pre><code>RUN R -e &quot;renv::restore()&quot;</code></pre>
<p>With this, <code>renv</code> will download and install the requisite
packages as appropriate when the image is created. Any new containers
created from this image will hence have those R packages installed and
visible at run-time.</p>
</div>
<div id="dynamically-provisioning-r-libraries-with-renv" class="section level2">
<h2>Dynamically Provisioning R Libraries with renv</h2>
<p>The aforementioned approach is useful if you have multiple
applications with identical package requirements. However, on occasion,
one will have multiple applications built from a single base image, but
each application will have its own independent R package requirements.
In this case, rather than including the package dependencies in the
image itself, it would be preferable for each container to provision its
own library at run-time, based on that application’s
<code>renv.lock</code> lockfile.</p>
<p>In effect, this is as simple as ensuring that
<code>renv::restore()</code> happens at container run-time, rather than
image build time. However, on its own, <code>renv::restore()</code> is
slow – it needs to download and install packages, which could take
prohibitively long if an application needs to be run repeatedly.</p>
<p>The <code>renv</code> package cache can be used to help ameliorate
this issue. When the cache is enabled, whenever <code>renv</code>
attempts to install or restore an R package, it first checks to see
whether that package is already available within the <code>renv</code>
cache. If it is, that instance of the package is linked into the project
library. Otherwise, the package is first installed into the
<code>renv</code> cache, and then that newly-installed copy is linked
for use in the project.</p>
<p>In effect, if the <code>renv</code> cache is available, you should
only need to pay the cost of package installation once – after that, the
newly-installed package will be available for re-use across different
projects. At the same time, each project’s package library will remain
independent and isolated from one another, so installing a package
within one container won’t affect another container.</p>
<p>However, by default, each Docker container will have its own
independent filesystem. Ideally, we’d like for <em>all</em> containers
launched from a particular image to have access to the same
<code>renv</code> cache. To accomplish this, we’ll have to tell each
container to use an <code>renv</code> cache located on a shared
mount.</p>
<p>In sum, if we’d like to allow for run-time provisioning of R package
dependencies, we will need to ensure the <code>renv</code> cache is
located on a shared volume, which is visible to any containers launched.
We will accomplish this by:</p>
<ol style="list-style-type: decimal">
<li><p>Setting the <code>RENV_PATHS_CACHE</code> environment variable,
to tell the instance of <code>renv</code> running in each container
where the global cache lives;</p></li>
<li><p>Telling Docker to mount some filesystem location from the host
filesystem, at some location (<code>RENV_PATHS_CACHE_HOST</code>), to a
container-specific location
(<code>RENV_PATHS_CACHE_CONTAINER</code>).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>For example, if you had a container running a Shiny application:</p>
<pre><code># the location of the renv cache on the host machine
RENV_PATHS_CACHE_HOST=/opt/local/renv/cache

# where the cache should be mounted in the container
RENV_PATHS_CACHE_CONTAINER=/renv/cache

# run the container with the host cache mounted in the container
docker run --rm \
    -e &quot;RENV_PATHS_CACHE=${RENV_PATHS_CACHE_CONTAINER}&quot; \
    -v &quot;${RENV_PATHS_CACHE_HOST}:${RENV_PATHS_CACHE_CONTAINER}&quot; \
    -p 14618:14618 \
    R -s -e &#39;renv::restore(); shiny::runApp(host = &quot;0.0.0.0&quot;, port = 14618)&#39;</code></pre>
<p>With this, any calls to <code>renv</code> APIs within the created
docker container will have access to the mounted cache. The first time
you run a container, <code>renv</code> will likely need to populate the
cache, and so some time will be spent downloading and installing the
required packages. Subsequent runs will be much faster, as
<code>renv</code> will be able to reuse the global package cache.</p>
<p>The primary downside with this approach compared to the image-based
approach is that it requires you to modify how containers are created,
and requires a bit of extra orchestration in how containers are
launched. However, once the <code>renv</code> cache is active,
newly-created containers will launch very quickly, and a single image
can then be used as a base for a myriad of different containers and
applications, each with their own independent package dependencies.</p>
</div>
<div id="handling-the-renv-autoloader" class="section level2">
<h2>Handling the renv Autoloader</h2>
<p>When is launched within a project folder, the <code>renv</code>
auto-loader (if present) will attempt to download and install
<code>renv</code> into the project library. Depending on how your Docker
container is configured, this could fail. For example:</p>
<pre><code>Error installing renv:
======================
ERROR: unable to create ‘/usr/local/pipe/renv/library/master/R-4.0/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/renv’
Warning messages:
1: In system2(r, args, stdout = TRUE, stderr = TRUE) :
  running command &#39;&#39;/usr/lib/R/bin/R&#39; --vanilla CMD INSTALL -l &#39;renv/library/master/R-4.0/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu&#39; &#39;/tmp/RtmpwM7ooh/renv_0.12.2.tar.gz&#39; 2&gt;&amp;1&#39; had status 1
2: Failed to find an renv installation: the project will not be loaded.
Use `renv::activate()` to re-initialize the project.</code></pre>
<p>Bootstrapping <code>renv</code> into the project library might be
un-necessary for you. If that is the case, then you can avoid this
behavior by launching R with the <code>--vanilla</code> flag set; for
example:</p>
<pre><code>R --vanilla -s -e &#39;renv::restore()&#39;</code></pre>
</div>



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